


Friday the 13th

by pushingcrazies



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Multi, One-sided Mystrade, One-sided Sherstrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushingcrazies/pseuds/pushingcrazies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade wasn’t a superstitious man by any means, but he absolutely hated Friday the thirteenth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friday the 13th

Lestrade wasn’t a superstitious man by any means, but he absolutely hated Friday the thirteenth.  It seemed all the worst moments in his life happened on that bloody day: his grandfather had died on a Friday the thirteenth, his wife had taken his girls and left him for good on a Friday the thirteenth, Tobias Gregson had been promoted to Detective Inspector on a Friday the thirteenth (and a good eight months before Lestrade had been promoted to the same position).  Hell, he had even met Sherlock Holmes on a Friday the thirteenth.

But today was going to be different, he decided.  He was going to ring in sick at work, turn off his mobile, and stay in bed all day.  And if Sherlock dropped by and happened to “find his door unlocked” again, he was going to throw him out.  Literally.

Life, however, seemed to have a different plan in mind for him.  Just as he was reaching for his phone to call work, it chirruped, letting him know he had a text.  Lestrade collapsed back in bed with a groan.  Very few people texted him, and all of them were on his Probably Not Good News list.  The phone chirruped again.  He glowered at the innocent little piece of plastic, then reached for it once more with a heartfelt sigh.  Might as well get it over with.

The texts, it turned out, were from Mycroft.  Lestrade felt his heart sink; on a scale of 1-10, with ten being horrific news, texts from Mycroft were generally a 15.  This time, it seemed, was no different.

 _Sherlock’s in the hospital.  Room 337, ICU.  Car crash.  Come ASAP._ - _MH_

Then: _Stop glowering and get up.  He needs you. –MH_

Lestrade was up, dressed, and out the door before he even realised what he was doing.

—

When he got to the hospital, he went straight up to Sherlock’s room without even pausing at the nurses’ station.  Sherlock was still unconscious, deathly white (more so than usual, anyway) against the bedclothes.  John was sitting beside him in a chair, looking tired and a bit bruised, but none the worse for wear.  His eyes were focused on Sherlock’s face, but when Lestrade entered, he looked up and smiled a weary sort of grimace.

“Mycroft?” John asked, though it wasn’t really a question.  Lestrade nodded and moved closer to the bed, leaning over to peer into Sherlock’s face.  His hands were jammed tight into his pockets to keep himself from the temptation of brushing back Sherlock’s lank curls.

“How are you doing?” Lestrade asked, straightening back up and stepping away a few paces to lean against the wall.  He noticed a butterfly bandage on John’s forehead, close to his temple.

John shook his head, then looked like he immediately regretted it.  “Fine, all things considered.  The car that hit us got Sherlock’s side, so he took the worst of it.  Even the cabbie was fine, though a bit shaken.”  He pointed at the bandage.  “Bit of a cut where my head hit the window, but nothing that won’t heal quickly.”

“Was it…?”  Lestrade found he couldn’t bring himself to say the name out loud.

“Moriarty?  No, too blatant for his tastes.  He likes subtlety.  It was just some poor bloke who ran a red light and hit the wrong car.”  John winced.  “I’ve never seen a man more scared than when Mycroft arrived at the hospital and headed straight for him.”

“Where is he now?”

“The cabbie?”

“No, Mycroft.”  Lestrade glanced at the door, as though he expected Mycroft to appear at the mention of his name.  Speaking of the devil sort of thing, he reckoned.

“He left,” John replied.  “Said something about you arriving soon and he’d best be off.”  John frowned.  “Guess he wanted to get back to being all…” he fluttered his fingers vaguely “Mycroft about the situation.”

“Or he didn’t want to be around me,” Lestrade muttered bitterly before he realised what he was saying and to whom.  God damn all Friday the thirtheenths to hell.  One had to be careful about what one said to or near John “I’ve Got a Popular Blog” Watson.  Maybe he hadn’t heard the slip-up because of the raging headache he must surely have.

No such luck.  “What do you mean?  You know, come to think of it….I’ve never seen the two of you in the same room before, yet you seem to be on speaking terms.”  John was giving him a puzzled look.

“We’re on texting terms,” Lestrade corrected him.  “We don’t exactly get on, haven’t since the first time we met.”

John nodded understandingly.  “He kidnapped you.”

“Worse.”  Lestrade shifted, trying to get comfortable without slipping down onto the floor.  “He broke into my flat one day while I was out with my wife and daughter.  My pregnant wife, I might add.  We get home to find him lounging in the front room like some sort of mafia boss.  He’d let himself in with a key he’d had specially made.  Nearly gave us all a heart attack, and Jordan had nightmares for a week of men breaking in to steal her away.  I knew who he was, though, or at least had a good guess.  Sherlock had warned me about his overprotective older brother.”

“Did he offer you money?”

“Yes.  I turned him down and then did what any self-respecting father would do for scaring the shit out of his little girl: I punched him right in the face.”

John’s eyes widened. “You…no.  Did you have any idea what he could have done to you?”

“At the time, I didn’t.  When I told Sherlock, he explained it to me, though.  And to tell you the truth, I’d do it again even knowing what I know now,” Lestrade said.

“No wonder Sherlock likes you so much,” John said.  “Not many people have punched Mycroft and lived to tell the story.”  He grinned, looking suddenly ten years younger.  He seemed to have forgotten about Sherlock’s condition for the time being, which made Lestrade glad that he had taken the risk of having his personal life spread all over the internet.  “So since then, he doesn’t come near you?”

“Well, that and the other incident.”  Lestrade cringed internally.  This story was a bit more risky to his reputation.

“What other incident?” John asked.  He looked so delighted and eager, always willing to have a laugh at Mycroft’s expense, that Lestrade found he couldn’t say no.

“Well, about a year later he dropped by one night when it was just me and the girls to tell me that my wife was cheating on me,” Lestrade said.  It felt good to get these memories off his chest; he’d never told anyone about them except Sherlock, who really couldn’t be arsed to care beyond the fact that his brother was meddling again.  “And he said that if I was interested, he would help me get revenge on her.”

“Revenge how?” John asked.

“By cheating on her right back.”

“He…wait.  He propositioned you?” John squeaked.  It was quite endearing, actually.

“Yeah.”

“What did you do?”  John’s eyes were so wide, it looked like it hurt.  Especially with that cut so close and everything.

“I grabbed him by the scruff of his fancy-arsed suit and tossed him, literally, out the door.”

John laughed.  “I would have paid to see that.”  He shook his head.  “And yet you still coming running when he whistles.”

Lestrade shrugged and let his eyes fall back on Sherlock.  “Well, I’ve invested a lot of time and sweat into keeping his brother alive.  When it comes to Sherlock, I’ll drop everything, even if it’s Mycroft doing the whistling, as you put it.”

John nodded, laughter gone, eyes sober and worried once more as he refocused his attention on Sherlock.  They were quiet for a moment.

“What were you two doing up and in a cab so early anyway?” Lestrade asked.

“We were just coming back from a case, actually.  I’d been hoping he’d get some rest once we got home, but I hadn’t wanted it to happen quite like this.”

“You’ve been up all night, then?” Lestrade said.  When John nodded, he gestured towards the door.  “If you want to try to get a bit of kip out in the lobby, I’ll stay with him.”

“Nah.  I might go find some coffee, though,” John said, standing up.  “Sit down before you fall over.”

Lestrade protested, “I’m fine,” though to be honest, leaning against a wall wasn’t as comfortable or as easy as it had once been.

John left to get some caffeine and to check his phone.  When he returned ten minutes later, he found Lestrade sitting on the side of Sherlock’s bed, one pale hand clutched in both of his tan ones.  He was singing something softly, but John could not quite make out what it was.  It sounded like it might have been a Beatles song, but John was afraid that if he entered the room fully, Lestrade would notice him and go back to pretending to be the aloof older-brother persona he always adopted when John was around.  John wondered how many times Lestrade had done this exact thing when Sherlock was sick or injured or going through withdrawals.

John quietly turned around and headed back for the lobby.  Maybe a bit of a kip didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.


End file.
